Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Derek L. Elliott has reviewed the National Archives of India for the Dissertation Reviews website. I think he found the experience slightly more comfortable than I did, but I also think that gender matters at the NAI, regardless of what others would tell you. Then again, I made a lot of research progress there despite the obstacles, plus it really made me appreciate the archives in Bikaner and Bhopal.
Elliott's review can be found at http://dissertationreviews.org/archives/1673.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

From the website:"Since 1991, I have been a Visiting Professor of South Asian Studies in the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Prior to this, from 1968 to 1991, I was Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana; and for a time Director of Asian Studies at this institution. My career in South Asian Studies began as a Fulbright Student to Lucknow University in 1954-55 where, under the tutelage of Professor D N. Majumdar, I conducted anthropological field work in village communities in Faizabad district, not far from the holy city of Ayodhya. Following completion of my doctorate, at Washington University of St. Louis, in 1959, my research and my life have taken me to every corner of India. After a while, the focus of my scholarship shifted to the study of grass-roots political behavior plus commentary and analysis (see my list of publications) on macro-political trends in the South Asian region; in these capacities over the years I have crossed paths with a wide spectrum of Indian politicians and scholars at every level of South Asian society, including four Indian prime ministers. My wife, Ketayun, is a native-born Indian of Parsi-Zoroastrian descent, a research scholar in her own right, who has published widely in the Social Work field and has over the years held numerous positions in academia."Visit Hal Gould's Corner: South Asia Past, Present and the World

Friday, June 8, 2012

I've been meaning to come back and update my previous post on the National Archives of India. What I've decided to is pull some links out the discussion originally conducted on the H-Asia listserv since the H-Net search function can be tricky.

As you might guess, while Patel's descriptions of the current state of Indian archives were accurate, there was some dissension and discussion about his articles. Quite rightly, some scholars objected to Patel's approach: it's very easy to criticize, very difficult to remedy. Many recognize the problem, few provide workable solutions to to it. There's also a question of (Orientalist) exteriority--who has the right to speak for the Indian archive? Foreign scholars? Indian scholars? What is to be gained by this intense focus on everything that's wrong with or lamentable about India's archives?

Mr. David Lunn pointed out that in addition to the negative attention, perhaps we should recognize some of the successful digitisation projects coming out of India. He mentioned the Digital Library of India, which I use quite frequently to look at older material (right now, books from 1904-1910). I've mentioned the Archives of India Labour here; I've also noticed that the website for the National Film Archive of India seems to be updated regularly.

The application deadline has passed, but Dr. Rashmi Sawhney pointed out that the India Foundation for the Arts was already directing resources toward fixing some of the highlighted problems by funding Archival Fellowships. What I particularly liked about the call for applications was that the materials could be submitted in any Indian language (including English). I hope this will direct attention to the preservation/accessibility of resources in Indian languages.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Today's "India Ink" provides a note of optimism for users of the National Archives of India in New Delhi. The most important line of the entire article? The following quote from the new director, Mr. Mushiral Hasan:

“I wanted to provide a corrective to institutional malaise.”

I'm envious of those scholars walking into NAI today because if this article is even 50% correct, it means they will have a completely different experience than I had working there. Even the "quicker turnaround for photocopying and scanning" signals something just short of a sea change.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

I'm working again this week with some of the material I gathered at the Archives de la Province de France de la Compagnie de Jésus in Vanves, France. The revisions I'm trying to complete rely fairly heavily on the Fonds Brotier. Right now I'm translating a bunch of astronomical observations recorded near Calcutta by Father Claude Boudier between 1731 and 1735 CE. This volume also contains copies of observations made by others that Father Boudier must have kept near for purposes of comparison and study. I'll add a brief index here, if you'll agree to forgive me the typographical errors and misplaced accents.

About This Blog

A compilation of research notes made while conducting research in London, France, and India for a Ph.D. dissertation in architectural history. Occasional updates and notes added as I come across interesting things while working on my book manuscript (working title: Astronomy in Motion).